+ Joy & Freedom

by Osho

And ecstasy is not of the head, remember. Ecstasy is of the heart. Ecstasy is not of thought; it is of feeling. And you have been deprived of feeling, you have been cut away from feeling. You don’t know what feeling is.

Become more of the heart, less of the head. The head is just a part of you; the heart is just a part of you; the heart in the sense I am using the word is your whole being. The heart is your totality. So whenever you are total in anything, you function from feeling. Whenever you are partial in anything, you function from the head.

Watch a painter painting – and that is the difference between a real artist and a technician. If the painter if just a technician who knows the technique of hot to paint, who has the know-how, who knows all about colours and the brushes and the canvas and who has gone through the training, he will function through the head. He will be a technician. He will paint, but he will not be totally in it. Then watch a real artist who is no t a technician. He will be absorbed in it, drunk. He will not only paint with his hand, and he will not only paint from his head. He will paint with his whole being; his guts will be involved in it – you can watch it, you can see, you can feel he is totally in it, lost. Nothing else exists. In that moment, he is no more.

He is not a doer. The head is a doer. In that moment of total absorption, he is not a doer; he is just a passage, as if the whole is painting through him.

When you come across a dancer – a real dancer, not one who is just a performer – then you will see that he is not dancing, no. Something of the beyond is dancing in him. He is totally in it.

Whenever you are totally into something, you are ecstatic. When you are partially into something, you wil remain miserable, because a part will be moving seperatly from the whole. There will be a division – a split, a tension, anxiety.

Swimming can become a meditation, running can become a meditation – anything can become a meditation if you are not. Ecstasy is of the heart, is of the total. By heart is meant your total, organic unity.

And dance today, not tomorrow. Let the dance be here and now, and let it come from your totality. You abandon yourself: you become a drunkard.

Yes, joy is mad. And only mad people can afford it. The ordinary sane person is so clever, so cunning, calculating, he cannot afford joy, because you cannot control it. Just as I have said that a joyful person cannot be controlled by the society, let me say this also to you: You cannot control your joy, you cannot control your ecstasy. If you want to remain in control, you will never be joyful; then you can only be miserable. Only misery can be controlled – by the society, or even by you.

Many people come to me and they say they would like to get out of their miseries, but they are not ready to move into a state of uncontrol. They want to control joy too. They always want to remain in control. They always want to remain the master, the boss. That is not possible.

The boss has to go. Joy can erupt in your being only when all control has been removed. Joy knows no control, it is wild.

Ecstasy is wild, you cannot control it. You have to lose all control. You have to drop into it, into the very abyss of it – and it is a bottomless abyss. You go on dropping and dropping and dropping and you never arrive at the bottom because there is no end to joy. It is a nonending process, it is eternal.

When you are madly dancing, madly singing, when you are joyful without any control, without your presence – when the joy is so full, overflowing, you are flooded with it and all control is abandoned – then you will see a miracle.

And God is not somewhere above in the heavens. E is here now – in the trees, in the rocks, in you, in me, in everything. God is the soul of existence, the invisible, the innermost core. The Holy is dancing with the unholy and the sinner is dancing with the saint.

Once you have become one, suddenly all duality disappears.

That’s why I say a really wise man is also a fool, has to be, because foolishness and wisdom dance together.

And a really sage person, a real saint, is also a rascal – has to be, it cannot be avoided. God and the devil are not two. Have you ever thought about the word devil it comes from the same root as divine; They both come from a Sanskrit root, diva from it comes deva, from it comes divine, from it comes devil (evil reversed is Live).

Deep down, the tree is one. Branches are many, moving in different dimensions; leaves are millions. But the deeper you go, you come to one, one tree.

When you are in a dance, everything dances with you. Yes, the old saying is true: when you weep, you weep alone; when you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. When you are miserable you are separate.

Misery separates you; separation makes you miserable. Whenever you are miserable you suddenly become separate. That’s why the ego cannot afford to be happy, because if you become happy the ego cannot exist – you are no longer separate.

Have you watched it? When you are really happy, your ego disappears. When you ar really happy, suddenly you have a deep feeling of being at one with the whole. When you are miserable you want to be alone; when you are happy you want to share.

When Bhudda was miserable he went to the forest, escaped from the world. What happened after six years? When he became ecstatic he came back, back to the marketplace. Whatsoever he has attained has to be shared. In ecstasy you become a flower.

You can watch it in your life. When you are unhappy you close your doors, you don’t want to see your friends. You don’t want to go anywhere; you don’t want to participate in anything. You say, “Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.” When somebody becomes very, very unhappy, he commits suicide. What is the meaning of it? What is suicide? Suicide is just an effort to go so far away from the world that one cannot come back.

Have you ever heard about any man committing suicide when he was happy, when he was ecstatic, when he was dancing? No, when the dance arises, you burst forth, you throw your doors open, you call your friends, you call your neighbours and you say, “Come let us dance and let us have a little fun. I have much to share and I would like to give it to you. “ And whoever comes to your door, you greet them, you welcome them. Everybody is welcome in the moments when you are happy. When you are unhappy, even those who have always been welcome are no longer welcome.

If you dance, the whole of existence becomes a dance. It is already a dance. Hindus say it is a Ras-Leela – God is dancing, and around God the stars and the moon and the sun and the earths are dancing around God.

During the Second World Ware there was a soldier who would drop his rifle on the battlefield and run to pick up any little scrap of paper, would examine it eagerly, then sorrowfully shake his head as the paper fluttered to the ground. Hospitalized he remained mute, his compulsion obscure and intractable. He wandered forlornly about the psychiatric ward, picking up scarps of paper, each time with discernible hope followed by inevitable dejection. Pronounced unfit for service, he received one day his discharge from the army, whereupon, receiving the discharge from, he found his voice. “This is it!” he cried in ecstasy. “This is it!”

Ecstasy is the ultimate freedom. And then one simply shouts in joy, “This is it” This is it! Eureka! I have found it.”

And the irony is that you need not go anywhere to find it. It is already there. It is your very core, your very being. If you decide to find it, you can find it this very moment. It does not need s ingle moment’s postponement. An intense thirst can open the door. A great urgency can right now make you free.